Sibelius a pig, or something else going on?

[jbm]

I've just finished setting up to work on my latest piece. I'm writing it in Sibelius and just playing the VIs hosted in Logic. And... ouch! Stutter, stutter, gag, belch!...

So, out of sheer panic, I shot Sibelius (poor fellow, but he is dead already), rebooted my machine, and re-launched the Logic "hosting" setup. I recorded a bunch of tracks with the instruments I was using, but recording/playing in Logic. No problems; played back beautifully!

Tried Sibelius again (there was a restart in between), and still hideous! Looking in "top", I see that Sibelius is only clicking in at around 13% cpu, so what's the deal? Anybody tried this, or is anybody doing this (sequencing in Sibelius with Logic hosting the VIs) with more success than I've just had? I'm guessing it's to do resources being chewed up by Sibelius, or possibly something around IAC midi... But why such a dramatic result from such a minor (13%) competitor?

If this is really the case, it looks like I'll be picking up a Mini or MacBook soon... no, not for hosting more VIs, but for running Sibelius!!! (damn, that hurts)

J.

[jbm]

okay, damn... lame, lame, lame...

Sibelius is, in fact, a pig.

Exported my score to MIDI. Imported to Logic. Totally fine.

Damn!!!! (I'm having a deep and serious love/hate relationship with my computer right now...)

J.

[jbm]

Just tried "Rax 2" for hosting instead of Logic... same deal, only worse! [;)]

ugly.

J.

[jamriding]

Just as a matter of interest: which Sibelius are you running? I have 2.1.1 (I know, it's like something from prehistoric times) but I'd just be interested to know if it's any better now (the demo I've got of version 4 looks a lot better).

Mind you, judging from your reactions I sometime wonder... [8-)]

[jbm]

It's the latest build of 4 (4.1, I believe). I sometimes wonder if it's actually better than 2 or 3, but it is a good program, hence my frustration at not being able to use it in my current setup. I'm pretty much resolved to picking up a MacBook at this point. I could use it to host extra VIs for larger setups, or use it just to run Sibelius when I'm composing direct to score, that is, using the G5 to run Logic as a host.

I don't always compose in Sibelius, but for concert music it really is the most natural way for me to think. And the Score window in Logic is pretty much useless by comparison... (though I may try, for the third time, to get used to it!).

J.

[DG]

Not that I know anything about current Macs, but you used to have to allocate memory to a program. If yours is allocated to Logic, you could need to allocate more to Sibelius. I have no problems with playback on a 1.7Ghz 6 years old PC, so there must be something wrong with your setup.

DG

[cm]

@Another User said:

but you used to have to allocate memory to a program

this applied to classic (OS9 and earlier) - X has a kind of dynamic memory management, the application request it and the OS offers it ... or not [;)]
christian

[DG]

Ah I see, thanks..... Well I have no idea why it should be virtually unusable on a Mac then. I know that it is faster on a PC, but this sounds ridiculous.

D

[dbudde]

@jbm said:

If this is really the case, it looks like I'll be picking up a Mini or MacBook soon... no, not for hosting more VIs, but for running Sibelius!!! (damn, that hurts)

J.

Don't think a mini or macbook wil solve your problem unless you plan to run it in Windows. Sibelius 4.1 is not yet Universal Binary. You'll need version 5 for that.

How much memory do you have?

[cm]

hmm ... i remember to have purchased my previous private computer july 2000 (besides a SCSI-disk tower with 8x18 GB for about 7.800 € ... ouch) with an 650 MHz PIII which was pretty much state_of_the_art at that time ... so something does not match.

i think the pentium processors started to send the PPC off was somewhen with the PIV around 1,5-2 GHz due to the changed processor design - see also SvK's posts where he's admittingly astonished about the power of the intel miniMacs .... so we have been watching the performance of the new macbook pro

christian

ps: if IBM and apple had ever agreed on the new Power5 multicores we would possibly read another story today ...

[jbm]

Yes, I agree about the Power5... too bad, really.

Anyway, the MacBook won't generally be running any Vis if it's running Sibelius. When it's running VIs it will be a slave to the G5, running Logic. From what I've read at the Sibelius site, the MacBook should run Sibelius on it's own reasonably well, even though it will be running in Rosetta. Again, the point being that Sibelius will be the only thing the MacBook will be running in those situations.

J.

oh, yeah... 4 GB RAM.

[jbm]

Oh, wait a minute... there seems to be some confusion. Sibelius runs just fine on its own. It's just when I have a pretty hefty VI template in Logic _on the same machine_, with Sibelius playing the score that the gagging begins. Perhaps this is not recommended (i.e., Sibelius as sequencer on same machine as Logic VI host), but I'm still not too impressed. Playback in Sibelius is just basic MIDI stuff, so it shouldn't bring the audio down system-wide. But the score following/drawing is pretty smooth, which can't be done without chewing up resources.

Of note, though, is the fact that DP does quite a bit better. Not perfect, but better.

So maybe Logic's the pig! (Or maybe it just doesn't play well with the other kids.) BTW, has anybody used Logic Express for hosting VIs?

J.

[jbm]

For anyone interested, another solution came to mind a little earlier... and it's free! The AU Lab that ships with the Developer Tools. It's a bit clunky to use, but once setup you can just save your mixer(s). If it works for me, I'm just going to save a basic template. It's pretty well featured, and seems slim on resources -- no problems so far. Could be a good choice for AU hosting, for those who need it.

cheers,

J.

[dfhage]

Hi jbm,

Have you managed to get AU Lab to load presets as you open a mixer. I am finding that I have to manually load the presets into the mixer each time I open AU Lab. But it does seem to work pretty well when driven by Finale, although that (Finale) is also a bit of a resource hog.

Regards

Dave Hage

[jbm]

oooh, you know, I haven't tried yet. That certainly could be a drag. I'll poke around with it later and see whether there's any way to do that.

Failing that, it looks like I can host them in MaxMSP, with reasonable efficiency. So, if I get something that works fairly well, I'll let you know. As long as you're on Mac I could send you a copy of what I come up with... it would be a standalone MaxMSP app.

I'll keep in touch.

J.

[jbm]

Quick update: MaxMSP is not up for the challenge... crackles, pops, and gags on the mighty VIs. Too bad. (These are _very_ hungry beasts. I'm guessing it's down to the realtime decompression of their lossless format... Could be why the Intel Macs do so well with VIs, as well. Perhaps the code is better optimized for x86?)

J.

[dfhage]

Hi jbm,

It is a shame about the AU Lab program it seems to be perfect for what I need, when using Finale instead of Logic. Also, there seems to be a bit of a discrepancy about where AU presets should be stored. AU lab seems to default to a different place to Logic which is a bit of a pain. I tried using an alias but that seemed to "confuse" AU Lab. I am going to post a question on the developer forum and see if I can get any answers to these preset questions.
If anyone can recommend a stable, efficient AU host please chip in. I have tried Rax (too many flashing lights), and Pligue Bidule (horrible interface and mixer). Anybody using anything else.

Regards

Dave Hage